Vinya Vella Grenache 2024

Vinya Vella Grenache 2024

If you aren’t familiar with Dylan Grigg’s work, you very soon will be. For an historical time, the winemaker has been the front facing rockstar – the Parker era times, where individuals were placed on a pedestal for their technique, recipe driven winemaking oft blending parcels of fruit from multiple source locations across multiple regions.

The philosophy associated with a piece of land and its surrounding environment being the most important part of the oenological process is one that has long been held in the old world, and has started to become adopted and appreciated here in the new world, albeit in smaller, more specific pockets.

Vinya Vella is one such project – a vineyard just under 6Ha, of which 4 are gnarly old bush vines from the 1900s, in Vine Vale planted on a sand that Dylan had been consulting to prior to his purchase and subsequent ownership and control of since 2021. With over 25 years of international viticulture experience and consultation, a PHD in old vines as well as numerous accolades for his work – it was really exciting to see Dylan lock this parcel down and really push a global perspective on what Grenache from the Barossa could look like.

It's only fitting that we land the 2024 this week after Dylan was presented with the Halliday award for Viticulturalist of the Year at this weeks Halliday Wine Companion awards. We were fortunate enough to taste the latest release a fortnight ago with Dylan himself, armed with a myriad of Viti data that we could geek out on and discuss how the vineyard has handled his organic and intrinsic philosophies.

Every year the wine shows the vintage, its site and how much work Dylan is putting in, the winemaking coming second, with each release being made the exact same way (with a little help from Spinifex’s Pete Schell) to showcase just what the vineyard is doing and how its adapting to its season. The 2024 is an exceptional release of Grenache – with a melange of hi-toned sweet red fruit and an underlay of briory darker berry hues, beautifully pitched and poised with savoury meaty notes, wood spice framed with beautifully sandy, fine grained tannin.

"Old Vines here translates to a Barossa Valley vineyard at Vine Vale that’s circa 120 years old. Bush vines. The pictures on the Vinya Vella site are great 'Viticulturist to the stars’ Dylan Grigg is the human behind the endeavour.

I love the fact that there’s a burst of sweet, raspberried fruit sitting in the centre of this wine, in amongst the savoury spiciness. Sweet fruit isn’t the enemy; savouriness isn’t the saviour; joy is an honouring of the past as much as it is of the present. This wine presents the gamut, its buoyant aroma and structured, pristine fruit sitting pretty in an old sea bed of herbs, spices and dried citrus rind characters that present like rusks. Over the way there’s a bonfire of cuttings; you can just detect the smoke. The Barossa is alive in this wine. This is a grenache that feels spring-heeled. It’s a pearl." 96 Points - Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front